the_mysterious_mr_enterfandomcom-20200214-history
Top 6 Worst Episodes I've reviewed - 2017
Hey, it's that time of the year again, where I look back and see what I've covered in two lists. The first one is usually the worst things that I've reviewed, and in the next list determining my top favorites of what I reviewed. Interestingly enough, both of them have given me a special kind of difficulty in making this list. We'll talk about my favorite reviews list, and in that list I'll talk more about the year overall. But as for the worst episodes list, the problem is the mere fact is that I don't think that I have enough material for a full list of the "Top 11 Worst Things I've Reviewed" this year. I made 22 reviews throughout the year; 17 of them being Animated Atrocities. The selections get shorter when I've done reviews for things like "The Emoji Movie" and "Cartoon Network in 2017." While there are technically enough candidates, I don't want to put something on this list "by default" so I've elected to go with a Top 6 worst - as many as I reasonably think I can fairly put on a list like this. Now... here's the thing. I don't make these rankings based on how directly bad I think a show or an episode is. I do a ranking based on how much trouble something gave me while reviewing it, through annoyance or audio torture or disgusting visuals or just on a plain moral level. If something is just plainly incompetent, like Hammerman for instance, I don't think that it's "worth" my ire. It's also going to be interesting because throughout this year, I did review many different popular shows that have garnered wide audiences for better or worse. So, if you like something that appears on this list, I wouldn't take it too seriously. Nothing had much competition this year, and only the bottom two are something that I would consider going on the "big list of bad things that are bad." I wanted to say that first and foremost, because number 6 on this list is-- Number 6: "Endgame - Legend of Korra" (Episode 141) I reviewed all of season one of Legend of Korra in this review, but this was the specific episode that made a Legend of Korra review a possibility. As I've said, Korra is far from the worst thing that I've ever reviewed. I can see many of its good qualities, and I can see why many people do like this show to the point where I could even recommend it to certain kinds of people. However that quality tends to end with this episode in particular, the season one finale. I don't know why... anyone defends this episode. To me, it is one of the most insulting season finales that I've ever come across. I don't know where to begin. The episode is filled with so many anticlimaxes and deus ex machinas, it's actually kind of... impressive. Oh sure, there's the typical bad stuff that could come from everywhere - Amon forgets that he has the entire world in the palm of his hand to fight Korra singlehandedly, even though he has no logical reason to do so. That's typical bad. A lot of even good series tend to have this specific flaw, but... oh boy. This episode goes above and beyond in its bad storytelling. Amon manages to take away all of Korra's bending abilities, except for her air bending abilities because he... apparently didn't consider the possibility that the Avatar had them. I guess there are defenses that she wasn't in tune with her airbending until... the time that she needed it most, but even if that was the case it was poorly conveyed. And even with any excuse, it's still the worse option. Korra not getting her bending back and being forced to fight Amon without it completely is the more interesting option. But what puts this episode on the list is the very ending. I still don't think there's any defending Korra getting her powers back instantaneously. To be frank, it's one of the worst storytelling moves that I have ever seen. In terms of narrative it adds no narrative possibilities, it makes character development more difficult, and it does rank up there with me for one of the worst endings that I have ever seen. Number 5: "I'm Just Like You" - Little Clowns of Happytown (Episode 135) One of the difficulties with making this list I've noticed is that I'm having a hard time saying something new about each individual episode. This is because, not to toot my own horn, I've gone into a lot more thought and depth with each review and made sure that I would be saying exactly what I wanted to be said. I said most of my problems with this episode and this show in the review. Now, this show is nicely voice acted. It's nicely animated. Bright and vibrant, and I hate its guts and I hate this stupid, stupid episode. I will give it credit, "disability" is a better topic to try teaching kids than say... overpopulation, but wow there are so many missteps in this episode that makes me not like this one on like a moral level. First of all, the song that gives "helpful" advice about what to do when someone is drowning, specifically aimed at those who don't know how to swim. I must repeat, if you do not know how to swim, all going in the water yourself is going to do is get you both killed. Maybe our knowledge about... water and drowning was different in the 1980's. After all, in the 1980's we didn't know that babies could feel pain apparently. But... let's get to the crux of the issue here. "Disability" is a complex issue to deal with. I won't say "too difficult for a kids' show" because a lot of kids' shows have tackled disability and have done it quite nicely. This is not one of them, obviously. This is because you can't say "they can do exactly what you can do" and you know... be successful. Certain disabilities, by definition, require certain special needs, and they, by definition, prevent the person with the disability from doing certain things. The way this episode is written, it seems to advocate things like... not having wheelchair access ramps because "They're Just Like You". It's stupid on the face of it, and is one of the clearest examples of people not thinking about the consequences of what they're talking about, only focusing on being politically correct. Obviously we shouldn't treat people with disabilities like they're freaks or awful or wrong, but completely ignoring disabilities can do a severe disservice to the people with the disability, and in certain cases make the disability worse. And I'd rather not go on about this here, since it's becoming long and complex what's supposed to be a brief blurb. Number 4: "Two Minutes to Paradise" - Committed (Episode 136) Award for the most "the episode that annoyed me more than I was expecting" episode. Just to state it briefly, this episode is annoying. It's soul sucking aggravating and everything I don't like about everything. It has just about every single sitcom cliche that I hate. The ones that paint even the idea of having a family as something that only the biggest moronic idiots would have, and try to justify people's terrible behavior with minuscule "oh look, they really do love each other" moments. I mean, the title of the show is a pun. "Committed." Get it, getting married and starting a family is like being sent to an insane asylum. The show tries to paint Liz as incredibly smart and intelligent as compared to Joe, like many of these shows do, but you always end up wondering in these types of shows, if Liz is so smart why the fuck did she marry Joe? Apparently entering a pyramid scheme while drunk driving on your way to buy heroin is a smarter idea than marrying someone like Joe and has less of a chance of fucking up your life, so how smart can you really be, Liz? And the funny thing is, I've watched multiple episodes of this show, and despite almost all of the promotional material showcasing Joe as the lazy idiot he is here, Joe is usually one of the more competent and collected sitcom fathers. So, we could add out-of-character to the pile here too, I guess. I dunno, maybe my annoyance towards this episode is just residual anger at other sitcom couples-that-shouldn't-be-couples, like Beth & Jerry that really brought down Rick & Morty season 3 for me, but that's a story for another day. I don't know what else to say. This is just... annoying. Annoying as hell. Which... really surprised even me. Looking at some of the other episodes, the show has a whole is roughly harmless. It's just... I'm moving on. 'Number 3: "Brian's a Bad Father" - Family Guy (Episode 134) '''URRRRRRRRRRRRMPH That's the sound of me screaming into a pillow. You know, it's sad to think that Family Guy can still get an episode on my yearly worst list while making an episode that might not even be in the top 5 of my most hated episodes of the show. With most shows, this would be the creepypasta that would have been too terrible to even consider making into an actual episode. In Family Guy, it's just another episode at this point. Why do I keep reviewing Family Guy episodes? I don't know, I really don't know. I could answer why I review so many SpongeBob or Teen Titans Go episodes. I like reviewing episodes from those shows. I think they're interesting to talk about it, the reviews are fun, and I think that they (usually) work themselves into good reviews. I do think that my Family Guy reviews do end up being some of my best. My Seahorse Seashell Party review is one of the few I can still stand from 2013, and Screams of Silence and Peter-Assment are still up there. But reviewing Family Guy never fails to just put me in a bad mood. Whether the episodes are disgusting like ''Herpe the Love Sore or Fresh Heir; fail to be any kind of dramatic or funny; be offensive for the sake of being offensive, or in Brian's a Bad Father's Case ... all three. What is the point of this episode? On any level. I mean, it's not funny. Not a single thing it does even tries to be funny, unless Brian being the biggest possible dick is a joke that makes you laugh. For the most part, it tries to tell a dramatic story, but that fails because it makes Brian out to be the worst possible person. Is the point to be pointless? You can't do that because it brings up a plot thread that's been dangling for years and years - Dylan. Is the point to bring up how little they care about that plot thread? That can't be true either because we're treated to 22 minutes of them treating it seriously, and not giving any hints that they're not going to give a shit about this again. In any other Family Guy episode, I know what the episode was trying to accomplish. Herpe the Love Sore was trying to be gross. That is an objective. Not All Dogs Go to Heaven was trying to soap box about atheism and religion. Screams of Silence was trying to URRRRRRRRRRRRMPH. But this episode... the only objective I could conceive of is making Brian out to be awful. But... why though? The deleted scenes even adds more fuel to this question. "Brian's a Bad Father" Okay, so what? Are you trying to suggest that we should stop asking for more Dylan episodes? Is this some kind of PSA? It's nothing. It's fucking pointless on top of everything that happens. 'Number 2: "The Wacky World of Tex Avery" - Top 10 Worst 90's Cartoons '''I debated including this one, since it wasn't an actual review, but since the pickings were slim, I thought that it would be fine if I opened the list's doors to this show because it deserves it. Also, every single episode is the same, so why not. I don't think that I can properly convey how much that I hate this show. How much I hate everything that it represents. Every little fact that resulted in its creation. This show is the biggest example of what can go wrong when the studio is so focused on money that they don't care about the artist. One of the most influential animators of all time, they take his name and butcher his creations, then they make him like an objectively morally awful character in the show. They get the rights by offering Tex Avery's descendant a pittance, saying that it was kind that they even asked her permission at all. In the review, I said that a lot of my harshness was coming from my own fear of death and the idea of how important that a legacy is. I said that I expected my anger and annoyance to be at the same level once that wears off, and yeah, I was right. This show represents to me, the worst aspects of the animation industry. Like, the biggest that you can possibly hope to get in the industry is to have your name used as a butchered brand for studios to make manufactured crap. I get that that happens in a lot of industries, but it's rare that we can point to such a specific culminated example of that. '''Number 1: "Ejaculation" - Big Mouth (Episode 143) '... ................. ............................ Well... uh... it's uh... it's... a show... it's on... Netflix. It's... got a second season. I mean, it really is fascinating that Netflix, and the 2010's, hold both my favorite and most hated shows of all time. If you're going for pure width of quality, I don't think that it's possible to cover more ground than this show has. It's been a great year for Netflix by the way. In September alone, they released the Magic Schoolbus rides again, which has awful art and replaced Ms. Frizzle, the most memorable part of the original show, cuz why not; they released Big Mouth the same day; and then of course, they released Neo Yokio which is gonna be... gonna be a fun 2017 review, I can tell already. Can I just say that it's been... a pretty bad year for animation as a whole? Like worst year of the decade so far. The Nut Job 2; The Emoji Movie; The Boss Baby; Cars 3 in cinemas. On television, there was... well, there was another Ben 10 reboot. Teletoon had a show called "Wishfart". Okay, it wasn't all bad. I've heard that there were many new classics, like Little Witch Academia; OK KO; Castlevania. But... even our successes seemed to be marred with failures. Coco got hit with Olaf's Frozen Adventure. DuckTales 2017 had a really good pilot, and then spent half a season getting back to that level of quality. Here's a tip - never trust a Disney television cartoon by its pilot. After both this and Star Vs. it's clear that when it comes to Disney, the pilot is not an indicator of the show's overall quality. SpongeBob got better, but Rick & Morty and South Park both seemed to... lose the plot. And let's say I have a complicated relationship with season 5 of Samurai Jack. I'm just talking about all of these other things because I never want to talk about Big Mouth ever again, until it makes my Top 10 Worst Cartoons of 2010's list, and god help us all if it's not number one. Category:Top Tens